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General Tabletop Discussion
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Pros and Cons of Epic Level Play?
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6285648" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I agree with all this.</p><p></p><p>And all of this can be true without it being the case that there is no difference between the conflict with some kobolds and the conflict with Tiamat. The difference in backstory (and its salience to meaningful choices by the players), the difference in emotional weight, the difference in fictional positioning, all matter even if the basic framework of resolution (ie mechanics for resolving conflicts between small-to-modestly sized groups of individuals) haven't changed.</p><p></p><p>The first two sentences strike me as almost truistic if used to describe the PCs relationship to the gameworld. They are not truistic if they describe the players' experience of play. When I am playing an epic game, for instance, I take it for granted that the PCs have servitors and admirers and that the lords of the world treat the PCs as their equals or superiors, for instance. But I don't necessarily want to spend the bulk of my play time resolving such encounters. </p><p></p><p>For instance, when the PCs in my game entered the besieged drow hold of Phaevorul, it didn't take them long to establish themselves as the most powerful single group of actors in the palce, and to start negotiating relationships with others on that basis. But these relationships were of interest mostly because they enable the PCs to focus on their goal, of closing down the Abyssal portals in the place as the first step in defeating a former knight of Lolth who was trying to reinvent himself as an exarch of Orcus. For instance, the members of the drow fighting fraternity whom they ordered into their service figured primarily as a source of archery during a fight with a ghoul horde (mechanically, an area burst attack for a modest amount of damage that could be triggered by a minor action: calling out "Shoot!" in Elvish).</p><p></p><p>For similar reasons, I don't think I agree that what matters more is what is behind you than what is ahead of you. Of course the backstory matters, and when you are at epic levels much of that is behind you (known to you) in a way that it is not at the start of the campaign. And the relationship of the players to backstory is different at that later part of the campaign (apart from anything else, they have contributed so much to it by their own earlier play of the campaign). But it matters not as an object of reflection in its own right, but as a component in the framing (story framing, mechanical framing, emotional framing) of the challenges ahead. Once there is no more such framing to be done - once <em>everything</em> has become backstory - then the campaign is over, I think.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6285648, member: 42582"] I agree with all this. And all of this can be true without it being the case that there is no difference between the conflict with some kobolds and the conflict with Tiamat. The difference in backstory (and its salience to meaningful choices by the players), the difference in emotional weight, the difference in fictional positioning, all matter even if the basic framework of resolution (ie mechanics for resolving conflicts between small-to-modestly sized groups of individuals) haven't changed. The first two sentences strike me as almost truistic if used to describe the PCs relationship to the gameworld. They are not truistic if they describe the players' experience of play. When I am playing an epic game, for instance, I take it for granted that the PCs have servitors and admirers and that the lords of the world treat the PCs as their equals or superiors, for instance. But I don't necessarily want to spend the bulk of my play time resolving such encounters. For instance, when the PCs in my game entered the besieged drow hold of Phaevorul, it didn't take them long to establish themselves as the most powerful single group of actors in the palce, and to start negotiating relationships with others on that basis. But these relationships were of interest mostly because they enable the PCs to focus on their goal, of closing down the Abyssal portals in the place as the first step in defeating a former knight of Lolth who was trying to reinvent himself as an exarch of Orcus. For instance, the members of the drow fighting fraternity whom they ordered into their service figured primarily as a source of archery during a fight with a ghoul horde (mechanically, an area burst attack for a modest amount of damage that could be triggered by a minor action: calling out "Shoot!" in Elvish). For similar reasons, I don't think I agree that what matters more is what is behind you than what is ahead of you. Of course the backstory matters, and when you are at epic levels much of that is behind you (known to you) in a way that it is not at the start of the campaign. And the relationship of the players to backstory is different at that later part of the campaign (apart from anything else, they have contributed so much to it by their own earlier play of the campaign). But it matters not as an object of reflection in its own right, but as a component in the framing (story framing, mechanical framing, emotional framing) of the challenges ahead. Once there is no more such framing to be done - once [I]everything[/I] has become backstory - then the campaign is over, I think. [/QUOTE]
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